To raise the profile of Evergreen for libraries considering moving to a new library system, a new outreach effort has begun.
Evergreen has largely been missing from the major library conferences such as ALA where libraries do much of their system shopping -- not in the conference program, not in the exhibit hall and not in programs -- in contrast to the exhibit hall booths of the commercial systems. Companies like Equinox are exhibitors, but they are not exclusively Evergreen, also supporting Koha, and are there to market their services of course. That will change this summer, as the Evergreen Outreach Committee will have a booth in the exhibit hall for the first time, at the June ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. The Evergreen Oversight Committee has approved an 18-month plan to make sure librarians know about Evergreen, but there is a cost for booth rental, etc., and that's one place where we need your help -- in addition to spreading the word yourself! Please visit the "Support the Evergreen Outreach Campaign" page at http://evergreen-ils.org/outreach-support/ and consider making a donation to support the costs of the conference booth. Approximately $20,000 is needed for the effort through December, 2016. More users of Evergreen could bring more funding for development, and more developers, to grow and improve Evergreen. Many small libraries are joining Evergreen groups, but there are few large library system converting to Evergreen, and the larger systems tend to have more development resources. At the booth we will be showing the Evergreen system and distributing fact sheets, and yes, we are in the program! The three MassLNC library networks -- the Central/Western Massachusetts Automated Resource Sharing (C/W MARS), the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium (MVLC) and the North Of Boston Library Exchange (NOBLE) -- are funding the booth rental costs for this summer's ALA conference, which are lower for first-time exhibitors, to start the effort. We need your help to continue the effort and gain more Evergreen users. And visit us in San Francisco at booth number 3345! Ron -- Ronald A. Gagnon Executive Director North Of Boston Library Exchange (NOBLE) Danvers, Massachusetts 01923 978-777-8844 www.noblenet.org
